


I'm so into you (I can barely breathe)

by mirilik



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Smut, Teaching Student!Harry, Uni AU, meets, tags will be added with the chapters, youtube au, youtuber!Louis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:38:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8190383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirilik/pseuds/mirilik
Summary: “Still not quite used to this”, he adds, motioning with his head to the pretty obvious camera on a selfie-stick that Harry still somehow managed to ignore.
   “Oh”, he says again and finally pulls his hand out of his bun. His hair most surely looks like a bird’s nest.   “Yeah, speaking of, I really need to run, have to get my footage together. I will see you around, Curly!”   Before Harry can even so much as breathe, turns the other boy around and disappears in the masses.Luckily not without giving an exquisite view on his round bum, hugged perfectly by a pair of skintight black trousers. God does Harry hope to see that face and bum around and to hear that pretty voice again. Another look through the bursting hall isn’t really helping to get his hopes up.   or a friends to lover's AU in which Harry studies to become a teacher and Louis aspires to be a famous youtuber. Cue a few too many drunken nights, several YouTube challenges and a lot of pining.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> So this idea has been in my head for quite a while. I've written the first few thousand words but actually never managed to get any farther. You see, I am a fan of big fics being posted in two or three chapters to make it more aesthetically pleasing like everybody else but I guess I'm not that kind of person. I decided to post this as a work in progress to motivate myself and maybe get some reviews and such along the way. So, if you're up for that, you're most welcome to join me in this try. 
> 
> I have no idea how long this thing will be, but I will update you together with my chapters if I have any more clue. 
> 
> Last but not least I apologize for any mistakes this thing will have, if you find any please feel free to mention them, so I can correct it as good as I can. :) 
> 
> Oh! And tags will be added with the chapters, too. If you find anything that you think needs to be tagged, please message me as well! Either here or on tumblr, there you can find me as louis-arssets. 
> 
> Aaaand I will stop rambling now.

# I'm so into you (I can barely breathe)

### The Beginning

It’s a joke, really. 

Harry has probably had hundreds of first days in his life. 

For instance the first day of school, first day in a school in a foreign country when he decided to become an exchange student for a year at sixteen, the first day with only his mum and sister Gemma at home, because his dad moved away after his parents split up, the first day at his dance classes which probably were always meant to be just this one day, the first day as a gay man out of the closet, the first day without Gemma in his home, because of her going to uni and most recently the first day in his new dorm in a new city in the south of England, a few hundred kilometers away from his mum, stepdad _and_ sister (Harry’s still angry at the whole city of London because the uni of his choice wouldn’t want to have him; not everybody can have only A-stars in their A-levels like Gemma).

Still the first day of orientation week at his uni seems to become as nerve wracking as any other of Harry’s first days.

While he’s buttoning up his favourite light-blue shirt, Harry tries to think of the exact reasons of his fluttering nerves.

It’s not that he has to impress the whole student body today. He’s got loads of friends all over the country so if he doesn’t find that many friends here he would still not be lonely in any kind.  
He’s got Niall, who decided to head over to Ireland for a gap year, spending time with his cousins and other extended family, since he didn’t see them that much with him and his mum and dad living in England.  
And then there’s Liam and Zayn and the whole gang, right along with Ed and his music friends who somehow all ended up in Manchester, probably annoying everybody with their semantics about Manchester United _and_ City being equally rubbish.  
And of course there’s Gemma who he loves, _although_ she’s torturing him to no end. Especially when she (once again) tries to play matchmaker and wants to send Harry on blind dates. Well, he probably won’t see Gemma before Christmas back home at his mum’s house. He swore on his favourite and most valuable pair of boots that he won’t set a foot into London for at least the next year (and these are golden YSL boots, we’re talking about, Harry is fucking serious).

Harry shakes his head wildly. He needs to stop thinking about what could have been, all the _ifs_ and _maybes_. 

With furrowed eyebrows does he double-check his outfit for the last time and then turns around to grab his brand new leather bag, that he deemed absolutely necessary for uni. Even more so because he’ll be studying to become a teacher.

Before he slips out of the door his eyes sweep over the empty bed on the other side of the room. It’s tradition for all the first years to share a room with at least one other person. Just when you’ve survived two semesters, you’re allowed to apply for a single room a bit further away from the first year dorms.

Harry’s room partner hasn’t shown up until now and to be fair, he is kind of glad. Like this he was able to make himself at home and arrange everything on his side of the room without anyone commenting about it. 

But this missing roommate is probably a factor for Harry’s nerves. What if that other guy is a douche? Or what if he’s a homophobe or has a girl over every single night? What if he’s going to bed at seven PM and tries to kill Harry with his eyes every time he comes home late? And most importantly, what if he hates American Football?

A shudder rushes through Harry’s body and he feels the urge to run over to his big Green Bay flag (which hangs casually next to a few rainbow badges Harry collected at the last pride parade in London) and kiss it a few times to shy the dark thoughts away.

Instead, he closes the door, checks again if he really packed his phone, something to write and his student ID and heads down the hallway towards the elevator.

It’s a joke, that first days make him feel like such a whiny little boy.

***

It’s inevitable that Harry’s thoughts creep back to London as soon as he sets a foot into the building, which is inspiringly called “Cafeteria One”. The room is huge. Thanks to the glass roof it appears a bit roomier than you might’ve thought from the outside. 

And the hall is packed. If Harry would have to guess he would say that there were around two thousand people in front of him, give or take.

His initial thought as soon as he pushes the doors open is something like: _And how many fucking first-years are in fucking London?_

The realisation that they’re probably a lot less students because it’s so much harder to get in and they have a lot less open spaces for first-years comes five seconds later, just when Harry starts to actually _like_ that London wouldn’t want to have him.

He decides that it’s probably better to concentrate himself on the task at hand, which firstly consists on getting to know where he has to go. 

Through all the hassle of squeezing himself through the throng of people Harry completely forgets about his nerves. He lets his gaze wander quite calmly through the room, reads signs that might lead him to the right way and tries to understand the occasional announcement that booms through several loudspeakers and is still too quiet to overpower the noise of two thousand talking people. 

Which - is a thing, Harry notices. Apparently everybody in his reech seems to have someone to talk to, to have a laugh with. And to have a hand to hold onto. 

This fact is a bit unsettling, to be quite honest.

Harry’s thinking about either running straight out of the building or to fall on his knees in front of the next happily chatting group and ask them to please tell him how they do it. How they can look so relaxed and why they talk to each other.

His eyes flicker between two groups and Harry still makes up his mind about who he might want to annoy with his helplessness when a pretty hard shove pulls him back into reality. 

Pictures of fifteen-year-old Harry getting shoved around on the playground at his school, being called gay and ugly and stupid, ghost through his mind. That was long before his new, more tolerant school, before Niall and Liam and Zayn and Ed. Still it kind of reminds him why it isn’t too necessary to have someone around.

And also, distractions! _Keep them at bay, Harry_ , is what he tells himself and he likes to think that he now wears a determined expression on his face.

“Fuck! I am so sorry, mate! You alright?”

A raspy, kind of high-pitched voice manages to make it through the heap of voices straight into Harry’s soul. Or so it feels like. 

Awfully clumsy, turns Harry around to face the person belonging to this dream of a voice. He doesn’t know if he wants to thank the gods above or light himself on fire as soon as his eyes settle on the person in front of him.

The first thing he acknowledges is that he has to look slightly down. Shorter boys may or may not do things to Harry, he doesn’t really want to elaborate on.  
The next thing are blue, _blue_ eyes which blink at him prettily; long, dark eyelashes framing the colour of the sea.  
Brown hair a bit disheveled, a messy fringe sticking slightly to his forehead, cute button nose and thin, way too kissable lips, that stretch into a lovely smile and then a tiny o-shape.

“I’m really sorry”, the lips and that voice say and _right_ , Harry is supposed to say something, too.

“Oh, um”, Harry mumbles, helplessly pushing his right hand into his hair in attempt to distract himself from that beautiful boy staring at him. He realises quite quickly that he pulled his long curls into a bun earlier, hence why his hand just kind of gets stucked.

“No worries”, he finally settles on and grins, probably a bit too cheerfully. 

“Okay”, the boy says, eyebrows slightly raised. “You sure? I think I’ve hit you quite hard.”

Harry has to use every power in his body to not react wildly to the slight blush that appears on the smaller boy’s face.

“Still not quite used to this”, he adds, motioning with his head to the pretty obvious camera on a selfie-stick that Harry still somehow managed to ignore.

“Oh”, he says again and finally pulls his hand out of his bun. His hair most surely looks like a bird’s nest.

“Yeah, speaking of, I really need to run, have to get my footage together. I will see you around, Curly!”

Before Harry can even so much as breathe, turns the other boy around and disappears in the masses.

Luckily not without giving an exquisite view on his round bum, hugged perfectly by a pair of skintight black trousers. 

God does Harry hope to see that face and bum around and to hear that pretty voice again. Another look through the bursting hall isn’t really helping to get his hopes up. 

He looks around once again and actually finds a sign with his major written on. He follows quickly in the now, hopefully, right direction. Not a minute later he stops in front of a stand, big posters saying WELCOME TEACHERS OF TOMORROW and adds his name, phone number and mail address to the ones already on the clipboard.

He gets a joyful smile in return from the third-year behind the counter (at least that’s what his sticker says, together with Hi, My Name Is Josh!) and all that Harry can see is that these blue eyes have a very wrong shade to them. 

“Perfect!”, the third-year exclaims, clapping into his hands. “We’ll email you our orientation week itinerary tonight. Until then you should definitely check out some of the clubs. They’re loads of fun and always a good distraction from all the uni stress.”

Harry nods politely and mumbles a pretty half-arsed “thanks so much”. The volunteer’s smile falls a bit, but Harry can’t bring himself to care as he turns around and heads straight out of the building.

“Distractions is the last thing I want”, he mumbles lowly to himself, fully intending to actually mean the clubs. He can’t stop the image of a blue-eyed boy with a high voice and higher cheekbones that dances right through his mind.

Better if he really doesn’t see that boy around anymore, that fluttering of his heart most definitely can’t mean a good thing.

***  
The whole dorm building is basically empty.

Harry shouldn’t be surprised. He’s just fought his way through the jungle of first-years and volunteers for about two hours after all.

Still, he expected somehow more people already back, maybe to try and settle in in their own rooms or to have a meet-up in the kitchen or public “living room” where a couch as well as a TV and a billiard table can be found.  
But as it is, is Harry pretty much alone in the three storey building. And that’s good. Yeah, awesome, to be exact. Just like he wants it. Calm and empty so Harry can come down from the struggle that was Cafeteria One.

He forgoes the elevator, climbs up the two flights of stairs to his hallway instead. He tries to concentrate on the ache in his muscles but the short way doesn’t do much. He decides to go running tonight. Feeling the real ache, getting to know the area and maybe he’ll be finally able to fall asleep quickly for the first time since - yeah, since he moved here.

The nerves and such.

He takes a deep breath while pressing the passcode to his room with the little numbered buttons on the door handle. He ignores the hard pounding of his chest against his ribcage and opens the door to find - nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, his things are still there (luckily? It’s not the time for pranks yet and he probably would need to know someone who wants to prank him first, right?) but the other side of the room is still empty.

Harry releases the breath he was holding and this time fully notices how his heartbeat slows again. 

He’s only slightly terrified of his roommate.

Thanks to his somehow strongly developed sense for a tidy home - a thing that might differentiate him from the other uni-boys, this and his lack of talent in a casual game of footie he finds his old running shoes effortlessly. It’s the first professional pair he’s ever bought, with high-tech measurement of his feet and everything, and he loves them dearly. He patched the sole about three times already but he just can’t find it in himself to buy a new pair.  
His father even offered him a few times to pay for a new pair, thinking that Harry’s only trouble was the money. 

It’s a bit different and a lot stupid, as he’s sure.

It’s just, after all the change within his family with his parents’ divorce, his mum’s new marriage and his dad’s several new girlfriends, was running and all the feelings that came with it the only stable thing in the past years of Harry’s life. 

Harry doesn’t hold a grudge against either of his parents. He knows that they did the right thing. He can see it in the way Robin looks at his mother and how happy she is, as well as in the way he knows his father enjoys his freedom. Not everybody’s made for marriage and although his parents’ didn’t work out and Gemma proclaimed more than once that she wants to stay independent and rather without a man than without an own career, does Harry still thrive for the day when he can finally say _I do_ to his soulmate in front of his closest friends and family. And then to adopt a footie team worth of kids. 

Until then, though, he’s got his running and his deeply loved and weekly changing running playlists. He takes deep pride in those.

To the shoes he also pulls out a long-sleeve and a t-shirt to throw over, as well as long slim-fit running trousers. It’s always pretty windy at the coast and it’s already October. Also, he doesn’t mind a little extra sweat. Pushes the blood pressure a little and makes it easier to forget about this quite disappointing first day of uni.

He just wants to push his phone into its running case with the strap-band to put around his upper arm, when it promptly starts ringing. 

Even in front of a jury in the courtroom would Harry deny the teeny tiny smile that creeps onto his face as soon as he sees the caller ID. Gemma would be way too smug if she knew about this.

“Hey Gems”, he says and shoves his running shoes from his feet, so he can settle back into the cushions of his bed. He already has the earbuds in and thanks once again Ed in silence, that he bought Harry these super good, extra bass things, with microphone attached. Always good to be friends with a musician, who gets these things cheaper.  
Like this, Harry is able to throw his phone next to his big pillow and lie down, face towards the wall next to his bed, where he could look outside through a huge window.

“Hello baby brother, do you miss me so much that you can’t contain your smile when I call?”, his sister sing-songs into his ears.

Harry rolls his eyes. Damn his sister and her stupid perceptiveness. She’s the plague. 

“What makes you assume that I’m smiling because of you and not because of the funny things my new roommate just told me?”, he asks back, not sure if he’s trying to fool his sister or himself.

“The fact that my Spotify just told me that you started to listen to your stupid sports-playlist. Why are you already running again? Or why do you want to go running? You picked up, after all.”

And okay, maybe Harry likes his observative sister a little. No wonder that she’s studying psychology in London. She’s a pretty smart one.

“Well, that first-year thingy was over and my roommate’s still not here so I thought why not getting to know the area.”

He shrugs and subconsciously pulls his duvet over his shoulders.

“You should get to know the area with the other first-years. Why aren’t you on a campus-walk or a fucking pub-crawl or something?” 

His sister sounds honest to god offended. Harry’s a little irritated. 

“It’s barely five, Gems. You know we’re still in the same time-zone, right?”

A huff sounds through his earphones.

“Don’t get cheeky on me Harry Edward! I know the time, but that still doesn’t answer my questions.”

Harry doesn’t even know how to describe the sound he just made. Something between a sigh, a laugh and a cry, probably.

“Harry”, Gemma presses and that just takes the cake.

“I don’t know anyone here, okay?! I’m already the fucking loser of this uni. Everybody was talking to someone, I was rude to the nice third-year at the teacher’s booth, and of course the only person I had something like a conversation with, had to be a beautiful boy, in front of whom I made a huge tit out of myself. Is that enough reason for me to have an hour of just running and music for myself?”

He feels a bit breathless after his rant but his heart does feel a bit lighter, too.Gemma’s profession as a psychologist seems to work already.

“Okay, H, deep breaths, alright? It was the first day. Doesn’t matter if you haven’t checked out any other things yet or that you were a bit shy-”, Harry grumbles a bit at that but his sister doesn’t even care, “you still have loads of time to meet people and do some other stuff. And also, the teachers are always a bit slower to start their first-year programme. Need to keep their mask of fake responsibility and such for as long as they can, believe me.”

A sudden snort leaves his mouth and if it wasn’t his sister, Harry would probably be embarrassed. 

“Mate, if you did that in front of that _beautiful_ boy, I really believe that you made a tit out of yourself”, another voice creeps through Harry’s earbuds into his brain. With only a few seconds delay does he finally jerk from his position and accidentally ends the call. 

Shit, he didn’t even register the door opening and now there he is, red-faced and stupidly embarrassed in front of his new roommate.  
Harry slowly turns around throws a slight smile to the other man standing right in front of him.  
That boy is a picture of self-confidence, tall, with even taller, unruly brown hair and a huge grin on his lips, hand pressed into his hips.

“Hi”, he says and fucking waves.

The other boy just starts laughing and Harry would be lying if he said that he doesn’t enjoy the fact that the boy’s laugh was quite unattractive itself.

His roommate flops onto the bed across from him, leaving his unpacked bags right where they are, in the middle of the room.

“I’m Nick”, he says. “Now tell me…”, Nick probes, with high pulled eyebrows.

“Harry”, Harry finally understands and grins. His dimples have always been his secret weapon.

“Okay, Harry, now tell me where I can find these beautiful boys you were talking about.”  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back. (Let's see for how long, ha! But yeah)  
> Anyways, this is all still a lot of introduction and stuff and will probably for the next few chapters.  
> thank you for reading xx

Three words. Nick is awesome. 

He’s quirky and funny, probably even gayer than Harry (is there a skala for that? Harry should google it; or ask Gemma) and is in uni for things like Gender Studies and Philosophy. He’s got no plans for his future at all but since his father is kind of a big thing at BBC he guesses that he’s got a pretty good safety net. He loves radio but his father wanted him to experience uni and live a bit. Nick wasn’t one to say no to that and Harry could more than understand.

“So what’s your big plan, then? You don’t seem like the risky type to me, no offence”, Nick says after a while of chattering about his life. He’s lying on his back, arms crossed behind his head and gaze trained on the ceiling.

Harry’s lying on his front, left cheek squished against the pillow. He’s still wearing his running gear even though he knows that he won’t run a meter anymore tonight.

“None taken”, he says. “You’re kind of right. I actually haven’t really thought about studying random subjects. For me it was always either business or teaching.” He shrugs after he realises that Nick’s eyes lie on him. “I love kids, I want an army of children myself and with teaching it’s easier to come back into the job after just taking care for your child for the first few years. There are basically always vacant spaces for teaching jobs and since I’m gonna be doing maths and sports I’m even more secure.”

Nick barks a laugh after that. “Nobody likes maths!”, he exclaims, dramatically flailing his limbs through the air.

“Exactly”, Harry grins. If he’s any good in uni his professional future is as good as safe. Only missing the spouse and children part.

“I see”, Nick nods and then turns onto his front, too. “Are there any other things I have to know about? Annoying habits I have to suffer through for the next year?”

Harry snorts. He didn’t really expect to be this… open or direct with his new roommate. But he likes it. He already feels like they will get along just fine.

“I - erm. I kind of sing? Like basically all the time. I lost count on how many times my sister threatened to kill me if I wouldn’t stop singing. So you should probably know about that.”

“Right”, Nick nods, a strange sparkling in his eyes. “Are you any good?”

Harry feels how his dimples form slowly in his cheeks. “Guess you will find out soon enough, right?”

***

**Dear First Years!**  
**A super happy welcome to all of you to our lovely university. These next few days will help you to get to know the campus, the city and of course each other!**  
**The schedule can be found in the attachment.**  
**We’re really looking forward to these following days of fun and wish you all a good start into the semester!**

**Your Student Department - Education & Philosophy**

Harry opens the attachment and feels slightly more at ease when he sees that one of the activities will be a pub crawl. It’s way easier to get through all of this while being drunk.  
Other points on the list are a campus tour, going for breakfast and a scavenger hunt through the city.

In his inbox he finds a similar mail from the Maths & Science department but in the end it’s pretty easy to choose the Philosophy orientation plan since Nick will be there too. 

“Maybe your boy will attend one or two things as well”, Nick says. He’s smirking. Harry knows that even though he’s still staring at the screen of his brand new Macbook that his mum and stepdad gifted to him right before his departure. 

“He’s not my boy”, Harry grumbles and shuts his laptop down. He looks at his roommate who’s lazily lounging on his bed and flips through a magazine. “Are you seriously ogling naked men while I’m in the same room?”, he asks, not sure if he should feel incredulous or amused.

“Oh, come off it”, Nick laughs and throws the magazine at Harry. It slaps him right in the face and slowly slips down until it lands in his lap. “It’s not that you wouldn’t enjoy some cock yourself and since we’re roomies we’ll probably see each other in much more awkward situations. Better to start being comfortable around each other right now. Also, you knew immediately who I was referring to, so I say he’s your boy.”

Harry’s view is trained on a very attractive man who is obviously getting fucked while Nick talks. The longer he stares on those naked bodies, the more prominent gets the thought in his head that hasn’t gotten laid in about seven months. Well, maybe the thought isn’t really in his head but more in his cock. 

Could cocks think? He should ask Gemma about it.

“He’s not”, he mumbles, shoving the magazine from his lap to the floor.

“Okay, then I can go for a try?”

It takes a lot more strength than Harry would like to admit to not scream no. He goes for an easy “You don’t even know if he likes boys”, instead.

“No”, his roommate admits. “So it’s time to find out.”

***

He doesn’t really want to admit it to himself, but Harry is so glad that he’s got Nick by his side. They find themselves in one of the biggest lecture halls this uni has and even though they’re still early - twenty minutes before the big welcoming should start - is the room, once again, packed. Row after row after row is filled with students, most of them looking completely terrified. Harry wonders where these guys were the day before, when he himself was losing his shit and helplessly stood inside of Cafeteria One. Right now he’s feeling pretty content, looking with his roomie for some seats in the back.

Nick whistles a happy tune and leads Harry to the second to last row. They fall into their seats and watch the swarm of people mingling from left to right. 

“Like a fucking nest of ants”, Nick mumbles and starts using his iPhone as a mirror and checks his quiff. 

“You shouldn’t work in radio”, Harry grins. He pulls his journal out of his leather bag and puts it onto the small desk in front of him. He’s nothing if not prepared. In the corner of his eye he notices how Nick lowers his phone and throws an irritated look towards him.

“Excuse me?”, he says.

“Yeah, I mean”, Harry starts, turning towards the older guy, “you’re way too obsessed with your hair. Would be a shame if no one got to see it.”

He knows that he’s sporting his cheeky grin. His mum gave him enough playful slaps on the back of his head whenever he looked at her like that. 

“Harold Styles, I’d like to remind you that there is a live stream into the studio? And recorded interviews. And think about all the social media, Snapchat and Instagram and all. I would even say that a perfect hairdo should be a requirement for getting the job. It’s basically the door to your soul.”

The whole speech is accompanied by big gestures and dramatic facial expressions. Harry is definitely entertained, he has to give Nick credits for that.

“Aren’t the eyes supposed to be the gate to your soul or whatever?”

He doesn’t get the answer; just in that moment a wave of shushing noises flows through the room and then a group of students wearing jumpers with the logo of their departement walk onto the podium in the front. 

The whole atmosphere feels like a weird mix between first day of school and waiting for your punishment after a particularly nasty prank you pulled on your teachers. Not that Harry has any experiences with that. The spray paint on the door of his classroom wasn’t him after all, even if his health teacher wanted it to be Harry so badly. That was in fifth grade and Harry was so angry about these false accusations that he wished his teacher the plague. Two weeks later did he break his leg, after he slipped on a frozen puddle. Harry still feels bad about it.

“‘scuse me?”, a soft voice then suddenly whispers in Harry’s back and luckily destroys the image of a limping Mr. Garner floating through Harry’s mind. He turns in his chair with a smile on his face and is really glad that he’s squished between Nick and a blonde girl who’s already taking notes like a lunatic. Otherwise he would be falling off his chair right in this second.

“Oh, I know you right? Curly, that I nearly knocked over yesterday”, the pixie boy from the day before smiles prettily, a little blush colouring his cheeks. 

“I, er, yeah. I mean, don’t worry”, Harry manages to press out, which earns him the attention of his roommate.

“It’s just, would you mind leaning a bit to the right? I’m trying to get a good view for my camera and your curls are covering a bit.”

And, right. Once again did Harry miss the little camera sitting on the brunette boy’s desk, facing the front, or right now, Harry’s face.  
Now he is the one blushing. 

“I mean, not that your curls aren’t worth filming!”, the boy suddenly adds, blush getting more prominent. 

“I-”, Harry starts not really knowing what he should answer.

“Shh!”, the blonde girl next to Harry snaps, throwing them an angry look and turns back to the front. 

“Sorry”, the boy mouths but Harry just smiles, turns and leans a bit to the right.

He’s not in full control of his body when he glances towards the pretty boy once again. He’s already looking, though, giving Harry a thumbs up.  
He mirrors the action and finally pays attention to the students on the podium. 

It feels like this went really well after all.

***

The welcoming is spend with Nick poking him relentlessly into his sides, to make him talk to him and with aggressively trying to come up with a good line how he could talk to the pretty boy after the end of this event. 

There are literally zero ideas coming into his head - the only usable things are stupid pick-up lines, like _did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?_ and he has a feeling that this would take it a step too far and he’s definitely not drunk enough for that.

He imagines that he can feel the movement in his back, notices whenever the camera is moved only a tiny bit and hears the tiny sigh when the professor’s speech in the front is a tad too long. 

He feels completely in tune with that beautiful boy until suddenly the whole thing is over, Harry has no idea what they've been talking about and when he turns around to ask the boy if he got some good shots is he already gone. 

Pouting, Harry collects his still empty notebook and the pen and slides it back into his bag. 

“We need to talk,” Nick says next to him and ushers him out of the row, down to the nearest exit and out of the building. 

“Was that him? It was, right?” he asks as soon as they feel like they can breathe again. 

Harry thinks about saying something like who was what? but he really needs to talk this off his chest.

“Yeah,” he says instead, smiling. “He’s pretty, isn't he.”

Nick whistles. “Quite a catch, yeah. I may need to rethink if choosing a friendship with you is better than having a chance with that arse.”

Harry nods, thoughts back by that pretty smile and those crinkling eyes. 

“I mean I hope he's gay, what a waste of an arse that would be,” Nick continues and it takes another two minutes until Harry finally reacts.

“Wait what?” he asks irritatedly. “That's really bloody offensive Nicholas.”

“Ooh, so now it's Nicholas. Just wanted to check if you're still with me, _Curly_. By the way, your crush is really obvious so if that boy ever talks to you again, you're in a good position to make a move. I mean, not that he was any better with all the blushing. Come to think of, I hope you don't get together, since this little exchange was already sickening enough.”

Harry nods. “ _If_ he ever talks to me again.” 

Nick chuckles, good heartedly and throws an arm over Harry's shoulders. “Come on, we’ve got the afternoon off, first thing is the breakfast tomorrow and I want to use these last minutes of chill to binge watch something on Netflix.” 

“Can we watch _Tangled_?” Harry asks because yes, he’s that kind of guy and maybe does Flynn Ryder remind him of a certain boy.

“Sure, kid. Whatever you like.”

So Harry lets himself be pulled over towards the dorms, not noticing that a certain blue eyed boy only waited for the right time to come and talk to him.

***

“Maybe this breakfast idea wasn’t so great after all”, Harry yawns, when Nick drags him out of the dorm building at half nine the next morning. Of course does he know that he would probably have to get up even earlier as soon as the classes start but his dorm bed was unbelievably comfy and warm and the wind outside is awfully cold and messes with his curls. He pouts.

“Harry really,” Nick chastises softly. “Lesson number one for you: these days after meant to be fun and those days that you meet your fellow students, have one or two one night stands that you will awkwardly try to not remember in your next class and to drink until you can’t remember what you did last summer. So stop that pouting and get a grip. And maybe a hat, your hair looks ridiculous.”

“Shut up,” Harry mumbles in his scarf and tries to hide the little smile creeping onto his face. “I will not bring a one night stand into our room.”

Nick shrugs, big grin plastered onto his face. “Suit yourself.”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Will _you_ bring someone to our room? Do I already have to find another place to stay?” he whines, stubbornly ignoring Nick’s eyeroll. 

“I may consider to only be sucked off in a bathroom, if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure, feel free,” Harry now full-on grins and doesn’t even say anything when Nick ruffles his already messy hair. 

“Well at least you’re smiling now, you big baby. Ready for some breakfast? Should I watch out for pixie boy as well or can you do that on your own?”

They’ve reached the other big cafeteria on the other end of the campus and Nick - gentleman as he is - holds the door open for Harry to slip into the warmth. A few tables have already been filled but the majority of the airy room is still empty. Harry tries to be nonchalant when he lets his gaze wander over the different students chatting with each other and opening their thermoses full of hot coffee or tea. He smiles when he notices the different posters hanging on the walls which once again welcome every new student and have the different schedules printed on. 

Harry thinks that he might like studying here. He turns towards Nick who is already watching him amusedly, probably because he still hasn’t answered his teasing question.

“C’mon, let’s meet some people,” Harry winks and pulls his roommate to the next group of tables, greeting the two girls already sitting there.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think :) xx mirilik


End file.
